BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY AUG. 1, 2018) — An example of our previous column on the shortcomings of the local daily newspaper could be found over the past weekend, when The Boring Broadsheet had on page one, above the fold, a puff piece with a headline blaring that the Berkshire County’s two mayors see the county’s salvation in airports and grants.

Where to begin?

First, a summit between the mayors of Pittsfield and North Adams can only be held below sea level and in a vacuum. This “meeting of the blinds” apparently took place in a phone booth at Lach’s Lounge. The CEOs of these two dying cities taking on the problem of how to revive their respective municipal corpses can be compared to showing up at a gang fight armed with wildflowers and cotton candy. Second, what exactly makes this news? If airport expansion and upgrade were the answer, we would have seen results a score or more years ago. Remember the big promises, how GE Plastics and KB Toys needed bigger runways for their jets? The BB, which was in the process of losing respect faster than a combat-zone stripper loses her clothes, provided the rah-rah-rah. Not only did The Suits promise that the multi-million project would keep these companies at home, but it would attract other businesses to relocate in the Pitts. THE PLANET asks: Wither GE? Wither KB? Wither that boom of new business?

As for grants, we ask that classic question: Who’s buried in Grants [no possessive here, you grammar cops] Tomb? Answer: Pittsfield. Sara Hathaway was the first mayor to proclaim Pittsfield a junkie for state aid. Since then, the city has turned into a magnet for public grant money. Grant bucks have several problems:

They come from the pockets of taxpayers, who have no say.

They are used to create new positions. When the grant funds dry up, the local hacks retain the positions and the make-work jobs. City taxpayers make up the difference.

Grants come with nefarious conditions, the most devastating of which is the requirement that Pittsfield (and we presume North Adams) must provide a home and a free living to assorted scum and marginals who only take and not give back — drug dealers, junkies, welfare cheats, and the like. Pittsfield leads the league in group homes and halfway houses because of grants. That’s the fine print The BB never tells you about and one of the most unreported big and scandalous stories locally.

That self-serving politicians would try to dress up the pig and tout the area’s salvation on a further beat-down of Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski is one thing. That the local daily would give play to such nonsense represents a dereliction of duty bordering on the criminal.

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I think you might find that some of the people who were granted tax breaks in Pittsfield actually benefit from the airport more than others. This expansion was more for the local elite than any new business that might magically appear on the horizon. Can you name one business that has moved here as a result of the airport expansion?

Dan, you did in 3 paragraphs what Free Em Freddies’ Boaring Broadsheet couldn’t do in 3 years – give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Oh Airports,gotta love em, especially little gems like the one in Great Barrington that don’t have prison wire fences and enough black top to fix the shitty, oops I mean city streets. And they invite the public each year to a nice little festival. Shitsfield has done that once in 30 years.

And Oh Mayor Hideaway, oops I mean Hathaway, was she not the one that said all the crime on The Yellow Brick Road called North Street was “an abberation”?

And let us not forget, speaking of business expansion, the great giveaway to the tenants of the industrial park near the airport. I think they got their land for dirt cheap for life , thanks to that highly suspect mayor Dobelle, or Beer Can Doyle or some other astute mayor and good ole boy city clowncil.

Lastly, your fine column reminds me of a sign I saw in a bar room once long before my biceps turned into granny arms – “If Assholes could fly, this place would be an airport”, which was next to a sign that read “next time bring your wife”.

Canyon Ranch in Lenox needs the airport as does the Tanglewood talent on the private jets in for 2 hours and back to the west coast.And the summer home elite of Stockbridge and Richmond and Tyrigham.Its a 1% elite driveway for Trump types and not one dollar is given to the taxpaying slave labor citizens of Pittsfield Ma.This is the worst run city in the United States.We are left only with the bill.

“Many of our residents haven’t been here,” Tyer said. “Making the case to residents about why we should be investing in this airport is all about the economic development and the advantages that it gives us. Not only for Pittsfield, but for the county.”

She doesn’t mention one “advantage,” might not even be for Pittsfield but for the “country”, which she thinks should be Mexico, so I guess secretary Tyer is fantasizing about airlifting in lots of brown babies for her to take care of.

Pittsfield politics is all about the Good Old Boys club! If you are part of the G.O.B., Pittsfield is a nice place to live. If you are an ordinary resident, you pay your taxes to the G.O.B.
The lovely Linda Tyer is the best Mayor of Pittsfield EVER!

All I know if that for 50 years of work (April 11, 1968, Day One as an apprentice draftsman at GE) to my previous paycheck, Money has been taken out or else, as an employer and self-employed, I have had to payout for SS. That money came when the government put its hand in my pocket and took it without my consent. I remember early on in my career wanting to have the choice of keeping ALL my earned pay and investing it for myself, on my own. Ah, but I was a saver. The pick-pocket law was meant to protect those who could not or would not provide for themselves. Throughout my career, I have operated as if there would NOT be SS. Anything that might come my way as a result would then be purely bonus. I was prepared to make my own way, and did exactly that.

SHH, logic just escapes you, eh? If current contributors are paying for current retirees, then the current retirees paid for the retirees while they were working. So they paid their dues into the system so deserve their benefits when they retire too.
Common sense, which you severely lack, should tell you that when someone pays into SS and MC their entire career they deserve those benefits when they retire, regardless.

SS is FDR’s Ponzi scheme. Those who paid into it deserve it though. It was created at a time that most folks didn’t live until 65. FDRs administration looke At it as a slush fund. But as people lived longer due to a variety of factors it backfired.

One of the main issues with SS is that there are far too many people getting SS checks yet pay nothing or very little into it, also known as SSDI. They expanded the criteria some years ago to include mental as well as physical disabilities. So now people with a bunch of made up disorders (I can’t work because of anxiety!) or faked injuries get another free ride from the taxpayers. That’s why SS is in the trouble it’s in.

You are correct, it is a huge scam now-a-day’s and even drunks and druggies get pensions to buy more product. “I chose to piss my life away in a bottle, therefore I am disabled, thereore I get government money to buy more booze”.

I agree, PAT. SS has been expanded far beyond it’s original intent or capacity, much like Special Education in the schools. When almost anyone can be made to fit, the programs can’t cover. When SS began, there were 65 workers supporting each retiree, most of whom didn’t live long past 65. Today, there are slightly less than 2 workers for each retiree, many of whom live into their 90s and even beyond. The center can’t hold. But MR. G raises a fair point about the obscene defense spending. WAY TOO MUCH. Thing is, I had friends and contacts who work in the defense industry, including one in the Pentagon. They uniformly say if we could eliminate a fraction of the corruption (notably, bid rigging) of these lucrative contracts, we could still fund all that we’re funding today defense-wise AND have more than enough money to take care of social programs. When you think of the TRILLIONS that have been wasted on the “wars” in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the point becomes indisputable.

I’m all for rooting out corruption. If these military bids are being rigged then we need to get our leaders to fix the problem so money is left over for social programs. We need social programs, but we need to use common sense in who needs to receive them and how much we can afford.

PAT
Bid-rigging has become a pastime in Pittsfield. THE PLANET is contemplating buying THE BORING BROADSHEET from my good friend “Here Come Da” Judge. First change (after dumping Herr Doktor as a columnist) will be to form a three-person Spotlight Team. Their sole job will be investigative reporting. They will be trained personally by me, and they will be the most relentless, feared, and incorruptible journalists money can buy.

SW, not only that but when you add up how much you pay into SS and MC you’ll find it’s more than any city employee pays into their pension. And yet they get a whopping 80% of their pay,including all the fake overtime they ‘worked’, when they retire

Since you cant seem to help yourself but hurl insults due to your low intelligence, I’d just as soon dump everyone’s money out of the system. I’ll pay for myself, just like Dan states he does, and laugh in the elderly faces I see huddled on the streets when they have no housing or medical care. You don’t want to pay for poor people? I DON’T WANT TO PAY FOR YOUR SORRY ASS EITHER!

Not certain but I heard that overtime didn’t count, and city employees pay medicare tax like everyone else and pay about twice as much into their pension as social security payers and any social security pension earned before or after city employment is cut in half. So, if true, city employees are actually getting effed.

Berkshire County politicians cater to wealthy Democrats. Wealthy Hollywood Democrats live throughout the Berkshire hills like James Taylor. Alan Chartock, an extremely wealthy Democrat progressive, lives in Great Barrington. All put down President Trump, but their hypocrisy is glaring since they have turned the Berkshires into an area that only the wealthy or school and hospital personnel with their unions are able to afford.

The salvation of Berkshire County will be jobs and lower taxes. Lower taxes are naughty words for socialists. Same with jobs. Local socialist politicians think people come here for the scenery and stay here for the scenery. Only local wealthy Democrats can afford to do that.

A deep seated bitterness oozes out of you Pat. I am thinking that when you were in high school some cute democratic boy turned down your request for a prom date.
Let it go. Get some counseling and find some peace pullleeezzze.

New in the Box, it is the daily cumulative riding and bashing of a broad spectrum of people she does not even know. I am sure there are some democrats who work with disabled children or cancer victims. But Pat hates them all if their values lean left. And this is the result of the brainwashing the Hannity types have laid on her and it is just very sad.

Dusty, it’s you on the left who call everyone racists and women haters and all kinds of other names who are the bitter ones. Anyone on the right who voted for President Trump is a deplorable and a racist according to the left. Now that is lumping people together. I like moderate Dems, but not these far left who are complete socialists and think ICE agents are terrorists and want open borders.

While we’re on the subject of the Eagle, a national story is right now playing out right in its own backyard; the resignation of the “entire Blanford police” force en masse is on CNN and the New York Times. The Eagle posted a picked up AP story on it.

Correct. Bianchi claimed that Nuclea Technologies (even the name is ridiculous) would bring numerous jobs to Pittsfield. Funny how this incredibly stupid mistake is never mentioned in the Eagle. Here is one of the incredible things Bianchi mentioned, “The next chapter is being written right now,” Mayor Daniel Bianchi said. “The William Stanley Business Park will soon be a magnet for many life science industries.”
He wasn’t the only one fooled. “This is a true economic initiative that has many, many tentacles,” said Mick Callahan, chairman of the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority.
But were they really fooled? Or was alot of money thrown around? It’s all very suspicious.

You are correct. I wonder if the Boring Broadsheet is covering this big federal case on page one above the fold, like they did with the airport giveaway. I wouldn’t know since I dumped the Eagle long ago, but I would be they are not giving it front page coverage – wouldn’t want to admit the Pittsfield Renaissance was a Mirage and Fat Pat was a key player in it.

If Harrington’s campaign manager takes 20k from Berkshire Money Management for his show as an elected official
Does he have to claim it as a campaign co tribute on? If Harrington benefits from the intentional support as Krol has claimed should she list it as a campaign contribution? If she hasn’t is it fraud???

Trump has announced fu ding for both ssi and ssdi for the next eight years. The criteria going forward for the latter will be closely examined. He also states that the Veterans Disability in many cases is not a result of physical but mental also, and will be funded but with greater scrutiny on the non – physical end of it. Loss of limb or I jury is priority number one. J Mel is safe because he’s been grandfathered in. And thank you for your service!

Even millionaires get social security and you won’t find many of them turning it down. In fact they also get welfare through tax breaks for the wealthy and all kinds of loopholes in the tax system.

Certainly there is fraud in the medicare and social security systems so address that. But why are we declaring war on fixed income senior citizens, many of who fought for this country? Maybe Trumps people can pass a statue where they can lock up the lower and middle class and be done with them once and for all. Obviously they are not worthy even if they are family members.

Democratic socialists are going to completely break the system Dusty by giving money out to everyone for everything from free college and even giving incomes to people for doing nothing and let’s not forget trillions of dollars just for healthcare. The problems is socialist Democrats have no idea where the money is coming from except to tax everyone into oblivion. When the system breaks down, which it will since they have no idea what they are doing, everyone except the very wealthy will suffer including the elderly poor.

Pat just so you know we are the most conservative country in the modern world.We do very little in terms of socialism.Your blue collar state university is 30k a year,the professors are 1%ers and please explain your experience with a liberal teaching of English grammer.Do you still want colleges to teach cowboys and Indians with Indians being the villians.Do you want regressive math taught or regressive science?who believes in not exposing the Catholic church.Regressives hear the truth and if you dont like it you call it a name.

Pat, as you well know, Social Security is not funded by taxes. It is still a self funded, extra-budgetary account. The trillions of dollars you cite for medical expenses, welfare and even food stamps are dwarved by our ridiculous, rapacious, out of control defense spending. Cut 10% from the defense budget and manage assets & spending there more scrupulously and we could have free health care and college for every American without being filled with resentment abkut it as you and your ilk are.

Math must not be your strong suit. You can’t pay for universal health care and college by cutting 10% of the military budget. The military is 16% of the budget. Medicare/Health is 27%. SS/Unemployment/Labor is 33%
Did you lose your calculator?

“U” why do you constantly mention everything that the Progressives have been doing such as taxing the middle class into oblivion and then turn around and blame in on President Trump? You do know that socialist Democrats will need to raise taxes to unbelievable rates for everyone to make their socialist utopia work?!?

Now he is publicly attacking Cavalier Management and telling them to “show some respect” on social media for wanting to sell their property as is their right – all because they have Caccaviello signs everywhere. Krol is a self-serving dishonest person who does not deserve to represent anyone in Pittsfield other than himself.

Please stop firing questions at me School Committee that make no sense. Wealthy Democrats who are promoting socialism should at least plan on slumming it with the rest of us if they expect us all to pay outrageous taxes and get terrible healthcare in exchange. Wealthy Democrats promoting socialism should live simply like they want the rest of us to do. They are encouraging the young to not buy cars or houses and instead use uber or public transportation and live in apartments. Instead the wealthy Democrats who are promoting socialism to the rest of us seem to live more extravagantly by the day. Why is that?

Pat, this is the funny thing about these elite dems/socialists. They complain about global warming yet contribute to it much more than the average citizen ever would. They complain about circuses and horse racing yet have no problem owning horses and dogs and force them to compete in horse and dog shows, including making them wear heavy saddles and silly outfits. They complain about racism and discrimination yet are filled with hate for anybody not exactly like them.
They all talk the talk but very few of them ever walk the walk. What a bunch of hypocrites.

Just a thought.
Has anyone considered what is going to happen to the Pitts when the casinos open in Springfield?
I have friends and relatives that religiously go to CT to “feed the Indians.” What’s gonna happen when casinos are just 54 miles away?
I’m sure it will be a boon to some livery operations for shuttles,
and the motels and hotels will be touting “Minutes from the Springfield casinos” and not to whatever Pittsfield has to offer.
Que up a scene of a deserted town with the dust & tumbleweed and the sound tract of “The Good, the Bad & the Ugly!”

The Berkshire mall is a casino waiting to happen. Where is Tricia when you need her? Load that sucker up with some slots and card tables and you can sit back and watch the money roll in.

Pittsfield could use its power of eminent domain and take a quarter mile slice of Lanesboro or just trade them the other half of Pontoosuc lake. Maybe Trump could pardon Murrca and put him in charge of the whole shebang.

Pittsfield will soon have a pot shop on every corner to add to the drug scene we already have here and all the bar rooms. Do we need to add a gambling casino too to encourage gambling addition? Should we just turn Pittsfield into a red light district and call it a day?

People on this board complain constantly about crime. What do you think is going to happen when the city has all of these shops and diversions that feed all kinds of addictions that require lots of money?

Pat, the progressive elite love these addictions. It means more $$ for them and the special interests. More methadone clinics and treatment programs paid for by the taxpayer. More people on public assistance paid for by the taxpayer. They love this stuff.

I agree NIB. They need to keep people docile and uneducated so they can easily steer them to vote Democrat. Even the college educated are not that smart. Just look at the young socialist who was just elected. She has all kinds of degrees from prestigious colleges, but knows nothing about foreign or domestic policy. The kinds of courses being taught in colleges are not civics courses, but how many genders do you have and white people are oppressive courses.

Well Trump wanted to invade Venezuela so I don’t see why Pittsfield can’t take a chunk of Lanesboro if it wants it. They can be pretty arrogant at city hall when they want to be. If they give us any crap we can shut down rtes 7 and 8 and isolate them from all the arts and pot shops. Or we could put tariffs on all goods being shipped through Pittsfield to Lanesboro. Just trying to think what kind of deal Trump would cut,

Harrington is the scariest DA candidate to ever run.
“This race is so important because we have a very progressive, Democratic community here and it is important we have a district attorney that reflects that,” she said.
Criminals would love it if she became DA.

Agree. She she has not articulated any real need or plan for transformation, only tinkering at the margins. If we need to move in a new direction, why? She has not defined what she would do or what supposed crisis it is that she is addressing. All her ideas come from googling “progressive criminal justice.” Most voters will see through this and know we do not need this here.

SARA
You raise a fair point, but I would say she HAS articulated a plan for transformation. The only problem is that, from what we’ve seen thusfar, the plan has not been successfully communicated. I don’t have enough information to know exactly why, but it looks like a combination of the campaign being too tenuous in its public statements (as I said before, to make headway going against The Machine, you have to make noise, as repugnant as that may be. Funny thing is that this can be done in a responsible way, although it’s a tricky balance) and The Machine coming out in full force against her, led by Sheriff Tom Bowler. She’s up against It.

I don’t hear a message, either that there is anything terribly wrong with the DA’s office or that she has a better plan or the goods to pull one off. What I do see is lawn signs, some walkabouts, attacks in the media and on social and a colossally weak performance at the debates. That makes sense because she is a poor candidate and the debates are where true colors show. Could things be better? Sure, but she is clearly not the one to make it happen.

One of her scariest messages, if it was one, was saying that the brains of those less that 25 years old aren’t fully developed yet and that should be taken into consideration when prosecuting. And also mentioning race and income factoring in. In other words, very light sentences or non prosecution of criminals. She seems to be more for criminal’s rights than victims.
Odd, but I know alot of people under 25 who’ve never committed any crimes nor ever will. And yet they supposedly have under developed brains just like these thugs she wants to protect.
Only a brianwashed snowflake progressive can come up with shit like that.

I Berkshire, which is soliciting donations to stay afloat by the way, has a pretty good story on DA debate. Seems like Hardly Harrington has aplan alright – to put hardly anyone in jail, hire people based on race (racism), and let diet bags out on low bail:

The DA is a gosh darn prosecutor for Petes’ Sake, not a social worker, and by the way Hardly, the reason more black people do time is they commit more crime – look it up. She is just another liberal loon who tried to get murderers off. And the sherrif is surely not in with the machine – he went up against Massamiano to get his job – The Machine is Ruberto,Tyer, Farley Doyle etc

What I find disturbing are Harrington’s comments at the last debate, saying she would focus on more diversity in her office. That is outright racism! When you focus on hiring a certain race then you are hiring on the basis of a person’s skin color and not on qualifications for the job. Just ask the school department how that program has worked out – two former failed principals were hired under diversity.

It’s utter BS, half the prosecutors have been women over the last two decades and the heads of IT, outreach,operations, victim witness are all women. Of color? There are more than most offices in the Berkshires. It’s a load of crap, another pathetic attempt to point fingers and how they could do better?

Not! Name 5 accomplishments of the Tyer admin. She’s been an absolute failure. Tyer & Krol were the energy behind the import of Syrian refugees – thankfully that program went away thanks to the Trump admin.

1. She’s raised taxes every year she’s been in office.
2. She wasted taxpayer money on Tyler St. trash cans to ‘support the arts’.
3. She pushed through the 80 million dollar waste of taxpayer money for the waste water treatment plant.
4. She worked so hard trying to force 95 gallon recycle totes down taxpayer’s throats.
5. She’s used the words dynamic and progressive more times than is humanly possible.
Oh wait, those aren’t accomplishments!

DA race….why do people arrested at age 23 have 3 convictions and arrested for a 4 but are on the street.Our police arrest the same men and women over and over and over again.How are they out of jail .One local judge wont send assaulters,heroin salesmen,or battered or attempted murderers to jail on their 4 th crime.

Regressives live in gated communities or suburbs.Regressives wont pay for better lighting on streets.Tyer does not care if 1st street is dark. It should be out up so the punks cant hide…..thank God for the gas stations lighting up the streets.All councilors should call for bright lighting on 1sr street and surrounding drug neighborhood. Moon,Caccamo, White,Rivers and Kroll souls make it happen now….cut tree limbs tomorrow.Is Tyer ever on first street.Is Moon walking the hood,is Kroll dressed to be near Tyler,Is Rivers to smart to help the hood off of 1st street.

Not to dismiss this site or its contributors, but during recent elections, when you compare the discussion here with the winners, the results indicate that us here on the planet have no impact on who gets elected.

Nib said earlier that District Attorney wannabe Andrea Harrington has said that the brains of 25 years old or less are not fully developed so they should not be prosecuted the same as other criminals. What???!!?? Will this be a new defense strategy used by lawyers?

It reminds me of the West side story song that blames the crimes of the young men on their family background so they really are not responsible for the crimes they have committed. Now the Officer Krumpkey song can be rewritten to say that the problem is all in their heads literally. They can’t help committing these crimes because their brains are not fully developed yet.